Help - refitting clutch slave cylinder & clutch fork stuck

[Elan45]

Gareth,

I can't tell much from the photo you've shown us. I was hoping you could see further inside, to where the release bearing resides.

Along the vein of discussions concerning the fork and possibility of the fork being bent and fork replacement:

The two little spring clips #17 hold the :, #16 to the fork and the release bearing assy # 14/15. The D ring must be held in place. Failure of these little clips could be your problem, if they broke and allowed the D ring to fall out of place, this could allow the fork and slave cylinder to over-travel, as you have described.

But what brought me to this point is that if the fork is bent and it is determined that the fork needs replacing, I would think it almost impossible to release the clips, withdraw the old bent fork, insert a new replacement fork and then replace the D and spring clips. This last operation is what I think could prove impossible with everything in place.

If it is decided to remove the engine to inspect/ replace the clutch, then it is time to look at replacement of anything which might be an issue. Don't replace just one or two pieces of the clutch. Keep us in the loop, let us help you.

Roger

[2cams70]

That's where one of these comes in handy. You might be able to have a look around inside for broken clips. Have you removed the bellhousing lower cover? You might be able to see anything that's broken resting at the bottom of the bellhousing although from memory there's not much of a gap between the ring gear and bellhousing.

[mbell]

Or something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/BlueFire-Android ... B013HZCYXK

Score that plugs into your phone.

[GHill]

Yep

For ?7 Ive ordered a USB mini camera similar to the android (I have a work iPhone). Should arrive by wednesday and then can have a better look.

Thanks for the advice so far everyone.

Cheers
Gareth

[AHM]

Hi Gareth,
Looks to me as if the pin has moved away from the bellhouse, the bright section you can see should be a press fit into its hole in the bellhousing.
If you are lucky! Find a suitable flat lever to place between the square hole edge and the left hand side of the fork, lever to force the pin back into the bellhousing.
Next
Ron.

Exactly that!

[gjz30075]

Hi Gareth,
Looks to me as if the pin has moved away from the bellhouse, the bright section you can see should be a press fit into its hole in the bellhousing.
If you are lucky! Find a suitable flat lever to place between the square hole edge and the left hand side of the fork, lever to force the pin back into the bellhousing.
Next
Ron.

Agree. But before pushing it back in (I suspect it'll come back out again), spray it with brake clean, wipe it off
and put some Loctite on it. Then, push it back in.

[2cams70]

I expect that something is still not right. If the clutch is adjusted correctly there should be no reason for the pivot to move outward even if the pivot is a sliding fit in the bell housing. The release arm has the clutch fingers on one side stopping movement and the slave cylinder pushrod on the other. It just rocks on the pivot, there is no pulling force on the pivot.

If you just push it back in I expect it will just come out again unless the root cause is fixed - eg. bent arm or broken/missing clips.

[GHill]

Hi Guys

So I have taken some photo's from inside (see below) and used a pry bar to push the fork back in and 2cams is correct in that it simply slid straight out again when I moved the clutch by hand. When I try to move it back and forth it is sliding in and out of the pivot hole.

So please have a look at the photo's to see if there is anything that you can see that is wrong. However I think that i will need to drop out the clutch - whats the basic procedure for this?

Regards
Gareth

Clutch1

Clutch2

Clutch3

Clutch4

[ericbushby]

Gareth,
To access the clutch you will have to first remove the engine. A lot of information is available in the manual, in Brian Bucklands book and on this forum. I have done it twice, as a relative newcomer. Best of luck
Eric in Burnley

[Craven]

Hi Gareth,
Not quite sure how you are testing things but with the slave push rod is in position, adjusted correctly and the push rod return spring attached the forces acting on the pivot pin are to hold it down in position against the bellhousing.
Ron.

[2cams70]

Hi Gareth,

I've taken some pictures of my gearbox out of an Escort Twin cam for reference. Everything is standard and it has a standard clutch fork. You should be able to see 3 clips through the bellhousing aperture and the measurement from the slave cylinder mount to fork itself should be around 110mm as shown. This is with the pivot in the correct position fully pressed into the bellhousing and the fork itself pulled toward the engine side by hand as far as possible (i.e fully released position) and then let go.

If your measurement is significantly different or you can't see the three clips then it's probably an engine or transmission out job regardless.

Escort and Elan gearboxes are exactly the same with the same bellhousing. The bellhousing itself is actually a Ford 105E Anglia part with some factory light relieving (as shown) to allow room for the larger Twin Cam clutch.

[2cams70]

Forgot to add Anglia bellhousing relieving

[GHill]

Hi 2Cams70

Thanks for your post and sorry it took so long to reply - I missed the email notification about your reply and then xmas etc (& year end for me) got in the way.

Thanks for the pictures I will definitely take a look when I get in the garage.

One thing I did do in the mean time is to bleed to the clutch and try to engage gears and Im sure you will not be surprised to hear that I could not engage any gears - in fact to add insult to injury I pulled the gear stick out and then noticed that the coil had split at the top putting coil oil all down the engine bay.

So its definitely and engine out job then? Time to order the engine hoist and stand.

Cheers for everyones help till now.

Regards
Gareth